Dell Ventures Expands into Europe

Build-to-order computer maker and recent venture capitalist Dell Computer Corp. will extend its financing reach into Europe next month when the Round Rock, Texas-based company opens the U.K. offices of Dell Ventures.

A mere 18 months old, Dell Ventures, the computer maker's high-tech investment arm, has already poured more than a billion dollars into more than 100 companies, said Tom Meredith, a managing director at Dell Ventures.

Similar to the Intel Capital, the strategic investment program belonging to Santa Clara, Calif.-based chip maker Intel Corp., Dell Ventures was established to "up the Dell brand through strategic investments," said Meredith, adding, "and we're in it to make money."

Dell is concentrating those strategic investments exclusively in high-tech markets, such as Internet start-ups, service technology, and storage, to name just a few.

"It's not enough to imagine the future; you have to fund it," Meredith said.

Meredith also said that established high-tech companies such as Dell are capable of making more savvy decisions concerning which start-up high-tech investments will be winners or losers, and that traditional Wall Street venture capitalists "were a bit confused" about how to accurately predict the future course of high-tech companies.

Admitting that Dell Ventures rarely makes initial investments in start-ups, Meredith said venture capitalist firms such as Palo Alto, Calif.-based Accel Partners act as scouts for fresh new technology ideas. In some cases, companies such as Accel Partners arrange the first or even second round of funding before Dell Ventures makes an investment.

Three recent Dell Venture investments, Exterprise Inc., Liaison Technologies, and ibooks.com, each spring from Austin, Texas, Dell's neighbor to the south, and a rapidly growing high-tech area.

"Austin has three near-perfect markets in action. Ideas, capital, and labor," Meredith said. "And there is a huge flow of capital into Austin."

The groundbreaking for Dell's Round Rock, Texas headquarters was originally set for Austin. But issues surrounding tax incentives drew the company north, to Round Rock, a source said.

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